Halsey isn’t holding back when it comes to the backlash that hurt Americana at the box office.
As reported by The New York Post, the singer—who stars in the film alongside Sydney Sweeney—took aim at fans who chose to boycott the movie over Sweeney’s much-debated American Eagle campaign.
The American Eagle ad—built around a “genes” vs. “jeans” pun—was slammed online for allegedly echoing Nazi propaganda, sparking calls to boycott Americana.
Halsey, however, wasn’t having it. Hitting Instagram, the singer urged fans to judge the film on its own merits. “You should go see this movie. Because [director] @tonytost made an exceptional film, in honor of a genre he knows intimately,” she wrote while sharing the film’s poster. She doubled down, calling the project “greater than the 24 hr gossip tabloid denim bulls**t.”
She also reminded followers that a movie represents the work of an entire team, not just one actor tied to a marketing campaign. “If you love cinema, then you should know that cinema comes first. This is cinema,” Halsey said, before blasting the coverage around the controversy. “It’s not fair for the media to predatorily rip a hardworking director and his hardworking crew for their film that is completely separate from and unrelated to a (pretty dumb) advertising take.”
Her defense came on the heels of Americana’s rough debut. The film pulled in about $840,000 across 1,100 theaters nationwide, averaging $460 per location and finishing 16th at the box office.
While Halsey spoke out, Sydney Sweeney has mostly sidestepped questions about the denim campaign. American Eagle, for its part, stood by the ad, saying it would continue to back its jeans “with confidence, their way.”
Adding fuel to the fire, voter records revealed Sweeney registered with the Republican Party of Florida in 2024—another point critics seized on amid the backlash.
